Pretty good stuff, I am a big fan of the intellectual process you put into this and it makes want to read more of your stuff. I wonder how accessible this content would be to someone not familiar with the Tolkien/D&D genre worlds (if such a person still exists). Go to Comment

I really want to love this. I already like this, I already respect this and I am inspired by it. But I want to love this and I can’t love it because of some very clunky prose and poor story telling. There is too much cleverness, wit and raw intellect in this post to let it stay as it is. You must edit this, and by edit I don’t mean proof read or correct.

I mean you must take the twisty and beautiful game of 52 pickup you are playing with your words and deal them out so that your readers can at least know were five cards are at a glance. Once we can figure out what is in our hand just by looking then we can take time to enjoy the puns and the self-awareness.

But let me sum up what I think you are saying here:

"You believe (rightfully so) that the use of the tavern as the birthplace of the heroic quests is a tired troupe. It is so trite in fact that the literary bad guys themselves realized that if they just destroy the taverns than Obi Wan will never hire Han Solo, the Magnificent Seven will never get past a pretty okay 2 or 3, and the hobbits will never meet Aragorn. But the plans of these forward thinking agents of evil was thwarted when the scummy villains realized that they need a hive as much as the hero’s needed a place of marginal danger from which to transition their narrative to places of true danger. So the bar flies among the villains tipped off the old heroes to the plans of the evil overlords, and the afore mentioned old heroes stepped in to put a stop to it. Is that correct?"

I think the prose is strong and professional and the story has potential, particularly around Halloween. I enjoyed the phraseology and admired the word choice. But the story is really about the Deni and Billy characters, while the post claims to be about headless motorcycle man. We don’t have a backstory for the ghost characters. The post-script also asserts that the focus of this story is on the motorcycle man and attempts to describes the use of the motorcycle man in game. The content does not fully equip a storyteller or game master to use this work, you have an idea here, a plot, but you don’t have a complete story or a completely developed NPC.

The assertion that the resolution of this conflict should be system specific would only be true for the most sophomoric of gamers. Imagine if halfway through your story Billy pulls out his holy symbol banishes the undead then gets in the car and moves on. That is not resolution. And above we don’t have resolution for the ghost characters. I know gamers that would be satisfied with that, but I don’t play with them.

Summary: All the details of the story are great but have you really expanded up on the content beyond “The restless spirit of a leather glad biker straight from central casting searches the back roads for the ghost of the woman that cut off his member”? As a piece of inspiration this is great, as a gaming resource it offers little because it has neither backstory nor resolution. As “draw it with crayon” camp says it lacks the “juicy details”.

I like it, the prose starts out witty and cheeky, but it seems like you run out steam towards the end and just start listing things. Overall nice sub, that describes its subject as much by tone as by the facts listed. This was a fun read. Go to Comment

This is wonderful. I love the way you presented the information. They style of presentation gave as much, or more, as the information in text itself. I can't give this enough praise for presentation alone. Go to Comment

I think this is a great piece, and so glad that I read it because I enjoyed it immensely. I think this idea of the immortally indentured servants is a great one that I do not feel has been fully explored in speculative fiction. The basic concept here could be stretched to sci-fi and these people could be holograms or robots or something that get reload every year. What else I have to say about this is just the musing of an enthusiastic fan boy.

This write up really straddles the three way line between real literary fiction, cartoonish sophomoric fiction and banal table top RPG considerations. In the first four paragraphs I feel you very concisely and skillfully layout a relatively complex situation by allowing the reader to view the events and discern their meaning. You show it, don’t say it and that show faith in your writing and your reader. I am impressed and feel like I could learn from it.

Then when you get into the next sections, you have asides that are obviously directed at the gamers: you note that all people should be seen as skilled warriors, and you discuss how very system specific concepts such turning undead and such might work. I get why you did this but it kind of pulls you out the story of these people. With some formatting changes I think you could condense all these gamer asides into one section. While the post still works, you just lose some of the rhythm and story telling strength with these asides.

Next you have the description of the towns people, and this is where you get into the cartoonish
“his waist tends to jiggle in more directions than needed, he is none the less dedicated to maintaining the oath. He can regularly be found with his trusted judge’s gavel hitting raiders over the head and yelling for reinforcements.”

There is nothing wrong with cartoonish, but it changes the theme of the piece again. You have children longing for death and clear mushrooms of their corpses and then a goofy fat man swinging a gavel into people’s heads and calling for help. Then you have Ua’d with his implied pontification on the nature of death, but you link that again to necromantic spells. I think a lot humans today wonder about death without the benefit or necromancy (unless you count the easter story as a necromantic event).

Yet there is an upside to these presentations. It presents the characters in a very accessible fashion. I can see everyone in my mind. Also by making them a little fun or cliché, you do cut into the morose themes, and I think that is necessary to explain why people keep up this process year after year.

Finally you descend again into sort of a darkly comic but horrific scene of children in battle, babies being blown apart, and young girls tearing the flesh off people’s bodies. You link this again to the cold blood priest’s bet. This is evocative stuff, and I would take this to mean that these people have been corrupted by years of war. But I can’t tell from the tone of the piece what you were going for here. Still it is great imagery and I found the prose to be strong and clear.

Overall great post, and though I now why you did it, I feel like you blunted this piece by focusing on combat and tactics and not on the lives and relationships of these people. You leave us with seeds, particularly in the case of Maria, but what is life like when you live immortally for combat? Do people fearing death wish to join the town and write their name in the ledger? Who will be the last man standing after everyone chooses death? What is the raid’s stop, will the count fail to arrive?

The fact that this piece raised these questions for me, made it a stronger and more enjoyable write-up for me. Go to Comment

If you are not looking for validation than it doesn't matter what people think of your subs.You fit in fine as far as I concerned, and I do pity you and I do validate you. I thought my Chamberlin comment was funny, and low be you in my estimation for not giving me even a snicker or disgusted eye roll. People commented on this in generally positive light. Shame on you for trying to shame us by asserting that we are shunning or excluding if you had any of emotion you assert that you are having you would have gone away quietly and not left this -I just don't belong note-. Furthermore, I want to call your hand I will make a better case that I don't belong here and you do. Let me know if you are playing! Go to Comment

"The potential to offend outweighs the utility" That is a slippery slope. After all it is part the speculative genre to push the envelope to an extreme so that the middle can be re-evaluated. I agree it was a tasteless and crass post, but not without merit. Maybe Censorship makes me a little sad....

Great hook piece, well written with some nice turns of phrase, pulled me in and makes me want to read more. I have not read much superhero prose aside from the Union Dues stories by Jeff Derego, but it is interesting to see it mixed with this Nicholas Spark's style melodrama that flows through the delta writings I have read thus far. You may have a niche there. Go to Comment

I am interested to hear more about this either as "How i used it in game" write up or a "What is the history of this thing in my game world and what does it say about my game world" type essay.

Critiques
First, and I say this with the greatest humility with my forehead pressed to the ground in shame...
First this could use a good proof reading and some formatting. Also word choice, when you writing epic fantasy is tricky. For example when you write "created the first nightmare." it is tough to tell if you are being artistic in your expression or if they literally created the first nightmare. I get that it is word flourish but still it is little bit of hiccup as you are trying to write this with epic and poetic language.

Second, as for composition what is this post about? Is about the wizards? No. But you spent half the post on them and then tell us to forget them. Then you do not come to back them at all. Stick to your thesis.

Third the weakness of the beast does not have an apparent narrative component. Thus, it seems to b arbitrary. When three times? Why exactly the same way?

I read this long ago when it first came out but got distracted before I could comment on it. I think it is great. I like posts that give you a past present and future, I like stories of culture, I like giant stone heads, I like monkeys, I like detail Go to Comment